Can someone answer a ?

[DearAbby]

May sound like a silly question, On the touch screen voting machines...Is there a place were the voter can write in a person's name, if none of the selected names above, are his/her choice?

And would that tiny detail be reason enough to completely scrap the system, because there is no way to write in another candidate's name. A voter has the right to vote for whomever he wants, not from a pre-selected list. He can write in POPEYE, he/she has the right to that vote.

Would this stand as argument before the supreme court?


and okay so it was more than one question :sheepishlookingsmiley:

[OnTheOtherHand]

1. yeah, they support write-ins

Different ones work in different ways. I think most common is a 'keyboard' that pops up on the screen.

EDIT TO ADD: At a conference I attended a few weeks ago, someone rattled off a list of misspellings of Shelley Sekula-Gibbs's name (she being the would-be replacement for Tom DeLay) that Texas voters entered as write-ins for her. I mean, "misspellings" doesn't really do them justice. Most of those write-in votes were cast on Hart eSlates; apparently, to do a write-in on an eSlate, you turn a scroll wheel to change each letter. Seems like a pain to me.

[DearAbby]

2. I have been lucky to not having voted on one

so I had no idea how they could do this. thanks for your answer :hi:

[OnTheOtherHand]

3. yeah, all I've ever used is levers and absentee ballots n/t